"And if you cannot forgive the deceits we have practised," put in Kralta, "think of the cause we serve. You have done brave deeds for your Queen and country, but nothing nobler than this." She hadn’t the style or figurehead to look pleading, but she absolutely laid a hand on mine, and her glance had more promise than appeal in it. "For my part, if I can make any amends …" She ventured a toothy smile, pressing my fin. "Please … say you will not fail us. All depends on you."
All of which confirmed my conclusion that they were under the misapprehension which has sustained me for a lifetime—they truly believed my heroic reputation, and thought I was the kind of derring-do idiot who’d answer the call of duty and danger like a good ’un, itching to fight the good fight. Bismarck knew better, which was why I’d been threatened with violence and the law, but now blessed if they weren’t appealing to my better nature. Remarkable … but you have to play the ball as it comes off the wicket, so …
"All very fine," says I. "But before I hear the ins and outs, let me tell you that so far you’ve made no sense. You say these Hungarian rascals are going to put paid to Franz-Josef, and you know where and when. Very well—round ’em up and string ’em up, why don’t you—"
"Because it ain’t that simple!" insists Willem. "Bismarck’s spy in the Holnup knows their plan, but not the names of the assassins, or where they are this minute. All we’re sure of is that they’ll have assembled somewhere near Ischl three days from now, and will strike before the Emperor returns to Vienna on Sunday next. That means the attempt will be made this Friday or Saturday—"
"Then let him go back to Vienna tomorrow, for God’s sake! Or if he’s fool enough to stay, surround his place with troops! Or hasn’t brilliant Otto Bismarck thought of that?"
"You do not understand." Kralta had me by the hand again. "None of these things is possible. No ordinary precautions will serve. You see, the Emperor does not know he is in danger—he must not know."
She meant it, too. I could only gape and ask: "Why not?"
"Because the Lord alone knows what he’d do if he did!" exclaims Willem. "It’s this way—no one knows of this plot except Bismarck, his man in the Holnup, and a handful of his agents, like ourselves. But suppose Franz-Josef, or the imbeciles who compose his cabinet, got wind of it—he’s the kind of purblind ass who would take it as a sure sign that all Hungary’s out for his blood, and he’d act according, orderin' arrests, repressions, perhaps even executions, or some such folly! He could provoke the very upheaval Bismarck’s tryin' to prevent. Hungary’s a powder-keg, and an outraged Franz-Josef is the very man to set it off." He drew breath. "That’s why he mustn’t know."
"There is another reason," says Kralta. "The Empress and Crown Prince make no secret of their Hungarian sympathies. She is adored in Budapest, and there are those who would welcome Rudolf as king of an independent Hungary. If the Emperor learned of the Holnup plot, he might easily be led to false conclusions."
"He wouldn’t be in the mood for a game of Happy Families, at any rate!" snaps Willem. "So there you have it. Now … Franz-Josef is only at Ischl by chance; normally he comes for a summer’s shootin', with a full retinue, but this week there are only the lodge servants, a couple of aides, and a file of sentries under a sergeant, more for ceremony than anything, and quite useless against assassins who know their business. There’s no earthly way to make him leave early without informin' him of the plot—so Bismarck has devised a way to guard him secretly, so that he don’t know he’s bein' guarded!" He laughed at my look of derision. "Impossible, you think? Oh, come, come, you know Bismarck; why, it’s nuts to him!"
"I’m waiting to hear what it is to me," I reminded him.
"Patience, I’m comin' to that. We leave the train this evening at Linz, where we spend the night, and catch the local train to Ischl in the morning, arrivin' at about noon. We spend the next thirty-six hours establishin' ourselves as tourists who’ve come to enjoy the attractions of the spa, browse in its boutiques, partake of the delicious confections for which its cafés are famous, and walk in the delightful countryside," says he airily. Never mind Bismarck, it was nuts to him, the jaunty ruffian.
"On Thursday morning, you and I will take a stroll in the grounds of the royal lodge, which lies a little way outside the town, refreshin' our spirits in the beautiful hilly woodland and admirin' the picturesque river meanderin' down to the town below. But now—" he spread his hands in comic dismay "—misfortune overtakes us. You slip, and sprain your ankle. I hasten to find help, and spy a gentleman out with his gun and loader—and damme, if it ain’t the Emperor of Austria! And if you think that’s one whale of a coincidence," says he, cocking an eyebrow, "it ain’t. Franz-Josef would rather shoot chamois than eat his dinner, and is in those woods at crack of dawn every day bar Sunday. If by some mischance he’s not, I’ll go to the lodge, but one way or t’other he’s goin' to learn that there’s a foreign gentleman in distress in his bailiwick, and when he discovers that ’tis none other than Sir H. Flashman, old acquaintance and saviour (well, nearly) of Brother Max in Mexico, he’ll be all concern and will undoubtedly offer him and his companion (a German count, no less) the hospitality of the royal residence for a day or two. And there, my dear Harry," chuckles he, "we shall be, honoured guests chez Franz-Josef, and if the Holnup can come at him while we’re on the premises … well, they’ll be smarter lads than I think they are, what?"
Taking this as a rhetorical question, and being numb and speech-less anyway, I let it pass without remark. Willem rubbed his hands.
"Now for the fun. Franz-Josef is all for the simple life. He sleeps on a soldier’s bedstead in a plain little room overlookin' the garden, with a single orderly on a pallet outside the door and his aides snug in their rooms down the corridor, everyone snorin' their heads off as they’ve done this thirty years past, and why not? What’s to fear? A single sentry under the window, probably half asleep, all quiet in the garden and surrounding woods, God’s in his heaven, and all’s well, until …" he dropped his voice to a hollow whisper "… out of those woods the Holnup come skulkin' in the half-light before dawn … perhaps a single bravo, more likely two, but certainly not more than three. Say three, two to look out and cover, one to do the dirty deed … all creepin' unawares into our ambush." There was a glitter in his eye that took me straight back to the Jotunberg dungeons. "We’ll take ’em either in the house or outside, as chance dictates. And we kill ’em. Stone dead. Every one. Follow?"
I let that pass, too, taking the advice of his Irishman and being as aisy as I could, while he lighted himself a nonchalant cigarette.
"It’ll be a noisy business, of course, and there’ll be a fine how-de-do when the sleepers awake to find three dead assassins and the two gallant visitors whose vigilance has saved the day. But once they’ve grasped what’s happened, you can bet your last tizzy they’ll want to keep it quiet." He grinned, pleased as Punch, tapping my knee. "There’ll be no inconvenient inquiry which might result in the unhappy discovery that this was a Hungarian plot. Why? Because whatever folly Franz-Josef might have committed if he’d learned of the Holnup attempt beforehand, he’ll not raise Cain when it’s all past and no harm done. There’ll be nothin' to show that the corpses are Hungarians—they may even be foreign hirelings—and whatever he may suspect, the less the public hear of it, the better. No monarch likes it to be known that he’s been a target, not if it can be kept dark, and his aides won’t care to have their incompetence noised abroad. So ’twill all be discreetly damped down, everyone sworn to secrecy, eternal gratitude to the two gallant saviours, perhaps even a pound out of the royal poor-box—why, if failin' to save poor old Max earned you the Maria Theresa, we ought to get a couple of Iron Crowns at least!"
"And Europe will remain at peace," says Kralta quietly.
"Aye, and we’ll all live happy ever after." Willem blew a smoke-ring. "So there you have it—all of it. Now you understand what all this to-do, which you’ve found so puzzlin' and inconvenient, has been about … and
why Bismarck chose you, ’cos you’re the only man he could put into Franz-Josef’s house and no questions asked. And you’re … qualified for the work." He paused, contemplating his cigarette. "Well, there it is. What d’you say … Harry?"
The honest answer to that would have been to tell him he was stark raving mad, and if he hadn’t been Rudi Starnberg’s son, with a gun in his armpit and the means to railroad me on to the Bavarian rock-pile for life, I might well have given it. Since my present need was to temporise, and give the impression that I might be talked into their ghastly scheme, I played it as they would expect from the redoubtable Flashy, indignation forgotten, narrow-eyed and considering, asking shrewd questions: How could they be sure Franz-Josef would offer us bed and board? What other agents would Bismarck have at Ischl? What if our ambush went wrong? What if it couldn’t be hushed up? What if, by some unforeseen twist of fate, Willem and I should find ourselves facing charges of murder?
Entirely academic questions from my point of view, but they elicited prompt answers—none of them, incidentally, concerned with the morality of butchering the would-be assassins. Willem, being a chip off the Starnberg block, wouldn’t think twice, but I was interested that Kralta too apparently took bloodshed for granted—and both, you’ll notice, assumed that it was all in the night’s work for me. Flattering, if you like.
Willem dealt confidently with my doubts. "It’s Bismarck’s scheme, and he don’t make mistakes. Franz-Josef is bound to take us in, but if he didn’t we’d just picket his lodge and deal with the Holnup in the grounds. There’ll be half a dozen stout lads in Ischl at my orders, but they won’t know what’s afoot and I shan’t call on them unless I must. If word of the fracas gets out—well, that’s Bismarck’s biznai, and he’ll see to it that we’re kept clear of embarrassment. Murder? What, when we’ve saved the Emperor of Austria? Don’t be soft. Well, satisfied?"
I wasn’t, but I chewed my lip, looking grim, while they watched me with mounting hope and encouraged me with occasional reminders of what a fine crusading enterprise it was, and no other way to ensure the peace of Europe and the welfare of its deserving peasantry. Kralta was particularly moving on the score of the juvenile population, I remember, while Willem appealed to what he supposed was my sense of adventure, poor fool; plainly he regarded a hand-to-hand death-struggle in the dark as no end of a lark. I responded with few words, and at last said I would sleep on it when we reached Linz. They seemed to take that as a sign that I was halfway to agreement, for Willem nodded thoughtfully and refilled my glass, while Kralta astonished me by kissing me quickly on the cheek and leaving the compartment. Willem laughed softly.
"Sentimental little thing, ain’t she? Gad, what a week you’ll have in Vienna when it’s all over! But I," says he, fixing me with a merry eye, "ain’t sentimental at all, and in case—just in case, mind you—you’re as foxy as my old guv’nor made out, and have some misguided notion that you’ll be able to slip away once we’re on Austrian soil … well, don’t try it, that’s all. Those stout lads I spoke of will be on hand, and they can have you back in Bavaria before you can say knife." He patted his pocket. "If I haven’t shot you first."
I reminded him coldly that I’d be no use to him dead, and he grinned. "You’d be even less use to yourself. But we won’t dwell on that, eh? You’re a practical man, and I’ve a notion that you’ll fall in with us. Just so long as you understand that you’re going to stand up with me against the Holnup, one way or t’other, what?"
So I hadn’t fooled him above half, and must just wait and hope. One thing only I was sure of: he wasn’t getting me within a mile of Franz-Josef and the blasted Holnup—supposing they existed, and the tale I’d been spun wasn’t some huge Machiavellian hoax conceived by Bismarck for diabolic purposes that I couldn’t even guess at.
That was possible … but d’you know, I was inclined to believe they’d told me the truth. Not all of it, perhaps, but true so far as it went. It was wild, but no wilder than some intrigues I’d known—the Strackenz marriage for one, John Brown’s raid for another. That Hungarian fanatics should be after Franz-Josef’s blood was all too credible; what boggled the mind was the scheme Bismarck had designed to stop them … until you studied it and saw that nothing else would have answered. The threat of explosion in Europe had arisen suddenly, like a genie from a bottle, worse than ’48 or Crimea or San Stefano, and faced with the apparently impossible task of ensuring the Emperor’s safety while keeping him in the dark, that ice-cold brain had seen that unlikely old Flashy was the vital cog, having the entrée to Franz-Josef and being eminently blackmailable. And he’d gone calmly and swiftly to work to bring me where I now was, by the most outlandish means, using Kralta and Willem (and Blowitz?) and above all his knowledge of me. His planning had been meticulous … so far. As for what lay ahead, it remained to be seen whether the web which his perverted genius had spun over Ischl would be proof against my frantic efforts to break loose, and the hell with Franz-Josef and the peace of Europe both. Well, he’d spun a similar web over Strackenz, and I’d diddled the bastard then, hadn’t I?
All very well; my immediate concern was to bolt, and with this son-of-a-bitch Starnberg half-expecting it, I’d have my work cut out. It must be soon; once he’d got me to Ischl, with his gang dogging us, I’d be sunk. Linz, where we were to stop the night, might be my best chance; I’d no doubt he was as restlessly quick on the trigger as his murderous father, but if I yelled for help in the street, or in a hotel, he’d not dare cut loose with his piece … would he? Yes, he would though, and take his chance, and make his excuses to Bismarck later. The local train to Ischl would be no easier to break from than the Orient Express … dear God, had I the nerve to spring at him now, land one solid blow, and leg it for the compartment where Blowitz and the boys would be whiling away the time and I’d be safe even from this bloody young villain … and as the desperate thought flashed across my mind I realised that he was drawing lazily on his cigarette, watching me with that insolent Starnberg smile on his handsome face, and my courage (what there was of it) melted like slush in a gutter.
Since I was supposed to be meditating on whether to join their frightful scheme or not, they let me be for the rest of the journey, Kralta next door and Rudi reading and smoking placidly while I brooded in my corner. Once I made a half-hearted suggestion about bidding farewell to Blowitz, who expected me to get out at Vienna and might wonder where I’d got to; Willem gave me a slantendicular smile and said Kralta would send him a note.
Dusk was falling when we pulled into Linz, but no more rapidly than my spirits when we left the station, Willem close at my elbow and Kralta alongside, and I saw the closed coach by the kerb, with a couple of burly fellows in billycocks and long coats waiting to usher us aboard. One sat by the driver while the other rode inside with us; he was a beef-faced rascal with piggy little pale eyes which never left me, and great mottled hands resting on his knees—strange, I can see them yet, powerful paws with bitten nails, while the rest of that brief coach-ride has faded from memory, possibly because of the shock I received when we reached our destination, and I saw that it wasn’t the expected hotel or inn, but a detached house on what I suppose were the outskirts of Linz, surrounded by a high ivy-covered wall and approached through an arched gateway which was closed behind us by the chap on the box.
That put the final touch to my despair. It wasn’t only that there would plainly be no escape from here, or the sight of another brace of bullies waiting by the open front door under a flickering lantern, or the air of gloom that hung over the house itself, conjuring thoughts of bats and barred windows and Varney the Vampire doing the honours as butler; what chilled my skin was the Bismarckian efficiency of it all, the evidence of careful preparation, the smoothness with which I’d been conveyed from train to prison (for that’s what it was). That was the moment when I began to doubt if there was a way out, and the nightmare sketched out by Willem changed from the frighteningly possible to the unspeakably probable.
&nbs
p; There are chaps, I know, who when doom seems certain grit their teeth and find renewed courage in their extremity. I ain’t like that at all, but my native cowardice does take on a sort of reckless frenzy, rather like those fellows who caught the Black Death and thought, oh, well, to hell with everything, we might as well carouse and fornicate to the end, ’cos at least it’s more fun than repentance or prayer. It was in this spirit that I was able to roger that houri in Borneo during the Batang Lupar battle, whimpering fearfully the while, and do justice to Mrs Popplewell while in flight from the outraged townsfolk of Harper’s Ferry. It don’t cast out fear, but it does take your mind off it.
In my present plight, things were made easier by Willem and Kralta, who kept up the pretence that I was a willing guest, chatting amiably as we went indoors, calling for comforts and refreshments, and when we came to a late supper in the sparsely furnished dining-room, setting themselves to put me at ease—a Herculean task, you’ll allow, but they didn’t shirk. Willem pattered away cheerily, and Kralta, shrewdly guessing that nothing was more likely to put me in trim than a fine display of gleaming shoulders and rampant boobies across the board, had changed into evening rig of red velveteen stuff with jewels sparkling on her bosom and in her hair. Why not, thinks I, it’ll see you through a restless night at any rate. So I joined in their talk, stiff enough at first, but unbending to the extent of reminiscing about a campaign or two, and from their occasional exchange of glances I could see that they were thinking, aha, the brute’s coming round after all. Nothing was said about the Ischl business until we were about to part for the night, by which time I’d drunk enough to swamp my worst fears and prime me for another bout with Kralta. She’d left us to our cigars, with a cool smile for me as I drew back her chair, and when we were alone Willem says:
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